Daybreak Wednesday, 9/30/26

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Now then…

More clouds than sun, but hey! It’ll be slightly warmer. Those low clouds hung tough yesterday, though things started drying out higher up. Now, though, high pressure is making its way north, bringing air flowing in from the south. And while there’ll still be plenty of clouds around, we should also get some sun—plus temps warming into the low 70s. Winds will be calm, low 50s overnight.

Seeing a familiar roadside scene anew. Maybe you’ve had this experience, where you pass by something regularly, and then one day, suddenly, it jumps out at you? That’s what happened to Janice Fischel the other day on 25A in Orford. “I have passed it many times,” she writes—you’ll recognize what she’s talking about—”but it finally made me stop for a picture.”

Etna Country Store to close. When Taylor and Kayla Dickinson reopened the store in 2022 after a change in ownership and two years of renovations, both they and Etna were full of hope. “We’re so excited to bring an old country store back to town,” Tyler told the Valley News’s Liz Sauchelli at the time. “We have the center of our community back.” But over the weekend, the couple announced the store will close “for good” this Friday. Rising costs, staffing problems, and razor-thin margins, they write, made life too hard. “Small shops like ours depend on steady, everyday business, and in the end we just weren’t able to reach the level we needed to stay open.” (Thanks, HD!)

Are Flock cameras or their ilk actually in the Upper Valley? The crowdsourced site DeFlock.org shows three license plate readers in Hanover, several by the VA, one along I-91 in WRJ, and one in Claremont. When Ian Struckhoff, owner of The Fourth Place (which sits in view of one) called out the Hanover ones, Town Manager Rob Houseman told him they’re actually camera-controlled traffic lights that don’t collect license plate data, reports the Valley News’s Alex Ebrahimi. He checks in on the others as well: the VA ones are not Flock, but no one will say what they are; the I-91 version is a virtual weigh station, say the state police; Claremont’s police chief hasn’t responded.

SPONSORED: Exciting news at Dutille’s! After decades of dedication, Jude is passing the torch to his sons, Beau and Ross, who will carry on the family business as its new owners. But this isn’t goodbye. Jude will step back from day-to-day operations while continuing to work at the jeweler’s bench, creating and restoring beautiful pieces. We’re incredibly grateful for Jude’s leadership and craftsmanship, and excited for Beau and Ross to continue Dutille’s family tradition of exceptional service. Sponsored by Dutille’s Jewelry Design Studio.

DH, Geisel get $20 million gift for “Health at Home” programs. The money comes from former biotech executive Dick Levy, who spent seven years caring for his terminally ill wife. “I was an amateur. I didn’t know how to do any of the things,” he tells Rachel Wachman in the VN. The aim, DH says in its press release, is “a safe and effective shift of care from hospital to home” by funding primary and palliative care at home and creating an institute to offer caregiver training, help with finding resources, and access to home care aides. It “reflects our…belief that patient-centered care means treating people where they want to be treated,” CEO Joanne Conroy tells Wachman.

In the Pomfret hills, farm-to-table dining “that rises to new heights.” There are any number of ways that Cloudland Farm departs from the norm, writes Suzanne Podhaizer in an enthusiastic Seven Days profile. For one thing, it’s “a well-oiled, for-profit meat-and-produce operation with a restaurant led by a chef seasoned at big-city eateries.” It’s only open two nights in winter and spring, allowing farm co-owner Cathy Emmons to manage the farm, the restaurant, and her family. And chef Mike Borraccio can run “Italian-ish” pop-ups at Wolf Tree or elsewhere. Podhaizer digs into what Emmons, Borraccio, and the restaurant do—and, of course, into the food itself.

SPONSORED: See the pioneers of the jamgrass movement live at Lebanon Opera House! On Saturday, October 10 at 7:30 PM, Yonder Mountain String Band hits the LOH stage for a night of music that feels fully alive. The Grammy-nominated Colorado quintet are hailed for their blend of progressive bluegrass, extended improvisational jams, and fiery rock energy. Experience the band that No Depression says is "always headed somewhere, blazing new sonic trails." Sponsored by Lebanon Opera House.

Poems that feel as big as a prairie. “Prairie” happens to be one of the poems in poet, printer, and Dartmouth English Department administrator Catherine Gibbel’s new collection, Little Sound. Which seems fitting, Rena Mosteirin writes in this week’s Enthusiasms, because when she took a poetry workshop from Gibbel, “what she taught was a sort of poetic freedom, an openness… where the participants were made to feel expansive, airy.” As for the poems themselves, Rena writes, “This is a book that surrounds you, a book you can live in, punctuated by phrases that flash.”

SPONSORED: Join Willing Hands for its Fall Open House. Celebrate Willing Hands’ food access partners at a free Fall Open House on Thursday, October 8, from 4 to 6 pm at its Norwich facility. Tour the warehouse, garden, and grounds, and meet the Willing Hands team. Enjoy wood-fired pizza, farm-fresh snacks, and a chance to connect with your Upper Valley community members who work to make fresh food more accessible to all. Learn more and RSVP at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by Willing Hands.

“Humor is a gift of the gods. It’s a tool that helps you get through.” Judson Hale, the longtime editor of Yankee and The Old Farmers Almanac, died Monday in Peterborough, NH. He was 93. He was known for a lot of things: steering both publications into the publishing stratosphere; his insistence on strong storytelling—"Make them laugh, or cry, or be amazed, but they could never be bored, and if they felt emotion they would want more. You wanted to write for Jud the best story you had in you, because he believed you would,” Yankee editor Mel Allen wrote in 2020; and maybe above all, his appreciation for humor. At the burgundy link, the Globe obit.

So let’s say you were clinging to the side of a rocket when it took off. What would you see? Can’t believe I missed this when it first went up. Back in August, the drone and camera company DJI strapped six of its cameras to the side of a Chinese rocket. They filmed the launch, the trip high into the atmosphere, and the return to a pinpoint landing. They didn’t happen to include the rocket toppling over once it landed, but hey, no one’s perfect.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP
Hood Museum exhibition tour. “How does art become a channel for understanding experiences of migration, and how can it express a sense of connection?” the museum asks. Curators will lead a tour of Shared Ground: Asian American Art in Conversation and Community and Exile: Artists in Paris, 1910–1939 to explore those questions. 12:30 pm, and you’ll need to register. There are a few spaces left

At Dartmouth, Ryan Emanuel on “Indigenous Environmental Justice in a Time of Radical Global Change.” Emanuel, a Montgomery Fellow at the college this year, teaches hydrology at Duke, where his research group works with various tribal nations. He’ll be talking about what it means for Indigenous peoples to hold connections to the places they call home “in a world marred by climate change, pollution, and unsustainable development? And why does any of this matter to the rest of us?” 4:30 pm in Filene Auditorium.

At Dartmouth, Stanford finance prof Matteo Maggiori on “Geoeconomics.” As they write, “The world economy is undergoing the largest change since the end of the Cold War. Professor Maggiori's lecture will explain how governments apply geoeconomic pressure using their economies' trade and financial relationships.” 5:30 pm in Haldeman 41 as well as livestreamed. You’ll need to register either way.

Insun Park & Generals play Lebanon Opera House. The quartet, led by Gangnyeong Mask Dance master Insun Park, blends hard rock, Korean traditional music, and mask dance rhythms. Artists-in-residence at LOH the last three days, they’ll cap it off with tonight’s concert—along with guest musicians from Tuck’s Rock Dojo. 6:30 pm.

At the Center at Eastman: “Preventing Cyberfraud in the Age of AI.” Norwich’s David Smith teaches scam awareness and fraud prevention for both Osher and Colby-Sawyer’s Adventures in Learning. He’ll be talking about how AI is rapidly changing the scam game, fraudsters’ latest tactics, the warning signs you should be looking out for, and more. 7 pm in the Draper Room. (Note: Their website seems to be on the blink this morning.)

The Hopkins Center presents Teatro La Plaza's Hamlet. As the Hop writes, the Peruvian theater company’s production makes us ask, “What does it truly mean ‘to be’ in a world that looks the other way?” Hailed during its runs at Lincoln Center, Theatre for a New Audience, and the Edinburgh International Festival, it’s here in the Moore Theater tonight and tomorrow at 7:30 pm. The Dartmouth Rude Mechanicals will entertain beforehand with some of Shakespeare's best soliloquies in the Top of the Hop. There’ll be a Q&A in the Moore Theater after tonight’s performance and a Meet & Greet in the Top of the Hop after tomorrow’s.

And for today...

We catch up to what Darius Rucker’s up to. The founder and one-time lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish launched a solo country career in 2008, hit number one on the Billboard Country chart numerous times, was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry Hall of fame, is national chair for the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville… and still keeps turning out songs. Here’s his latest, “I Believe.”

See you tomorrow.

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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt      Poetry editor: Michael Lipson    Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt